Alan Ashfield – Calculating for the future

After 18 years of supplying hydraulic calculation software to the sprinkler industry Alan Ashfield has decided to take a well-earned rest. Many of us in the sprinkler industry (well those of a certain age) will remember the days before computers, when hydraulically calculated systems were less frequent not because it would not have reduced pipe sizes or resulted in smaller pumps but because the term ‘fully hydraulic system’ made many people weak at the knees. This was the time when full hydraulic calculations were considered a ‘dark art’ performed by few using strange tables or peculiar slide rules. But unknown to us then, two Alan’s were planning a revolution.

Alan Sugar of Amstrad developed the first mass produced and affordable computer and Alan Ashfield wrote his first hydraulic calculation program ‘Sprinkle’ to exploit this hi-tech revolution at the start of the personal computer age. ‘Sprinkle’ was a technological marvel of its time, as Alan had managed to develop a sophisticated hydraulics program and fit it into the small amount of memory available on the Amstrad PCW computer something that had never been done before.

With the success of the ‘Sprinkle’ program and the rapid development in personal computers, Alan went on to develop many more programs (Spray, SHP and SDS) for the sprinkler industry. The last program Alan developed was FHC, which has hundreds of users in the UK and overseas.

So what will happen to FHC? Fortunately for its current and prospective users its future has been protected as Canute Software has acquired the program and will be actively marketing and continuing its development for the foreseeable future. Canute Software will write to all users of FHC in November explaining in detail the new arrangements for Sales and Technical Support.

The sprinkler industry owes much to Alan’s hard work over the last 18 years. He has provided us with high quality and affordable software; no longer do we have to fear the fully hydraulic calculated systems.

From everyone in the industry best wishes to Alan for the future.

(This news item was first published in the BASA news – www.basa.org.uk)